Ever wondered why we have all these anthropomorphic collective nouns?

[Joe Carillo]

Forum contributor Ben Sanchez wishes to share with us this delightful photo-essay about the nature of beasts and humankind. Enjoy!

Priceless.

The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals.

We are all familiar with

A Herd of Cows,


A Flock of Chickens,


A School of Fish,


A Gaggle of Geese, and


A Pride of Lions.

However, less widely known is:


A Murder of Crows,


(as well as of their cousins the Rooks and Ravens),


An Exaltation of Doves,

And, presumably because they look so wise,


A Congress of Owls.


Now consider a group of Baboons.

They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates... And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?
 
Believe it or not… A Parliament
 

Yep... A Parliament of Baboons!*

Pretty much explains everything, doesn’t it?

You just can’t make this up.

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*Editor’s note: This is the British version, of course. The Philippines has its own. Do you know what the collective anthropomorphic noun for them is? Do tell us your answer.